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Monday, September 17, 2012

Red Hot Sec's (aka is Low-Sec REALLY broken?)

Certain CCP comments have got the forums and blog-sphere rumbling. I refer to CCP Ybettrium's comments about "nerfing high sec" to encourage people out of hi-sec and into low-sec.

As others have pointed out, http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2012/09/cogs.html, CCP's idea's are well off the mark. Changes to manufacturing slot cost and the like are going to make little difference even with a big multiplier. These costs are tiny in comparison to the materials cost. If you double the cost of the factory slot and that cost makes up 1% of the overall item manufacturing cost, then you are increasing the cost negligibly.

It is said that low-sec and "risk vs. reward" is broken in Eve currently. Rewards should scale from low to high depending on the risk and work required.

Can it ever work like that?

I used to think that is the way it should be, actual risk running from low risk in hi-sec to high risk in null-sec with the rewards for playing running low to high. But it will never work like that because low-sec is, in Hans Jagerblitzen's words, "Fight Club". It is where the PvP'rs go to PvP. Null-sec can be, and often is, much safer than low-sec. Owned systems with bubbled gates and intel channels warning of non-blues from 20 jumps away. You can happily rat in carriers out there (yes I have)! But in low-sec? Now that's a different story.

Let's look at the most popular types of money making in Eve.

Missioning - Level 4 missions will get you bigger rewards if you do them in low-sec. Go on, fly your officer-fit Marauder class battleship around low-sec for a while. Try it, see what happens!

Mining - The roids are bigger, juicer and tastier in low-sec. Go triple boxing with your Orca and two Hulks in low-sec. Try it, see what happens!

Manufacturing - Currently there is no reason to manufacture in low-sec other than the factory slots are less used in NPC stations. But there is a reason for that, materials are hard to get hold of. You could always bring a freighter full of minerals into low sec though. Try it, see what happens! Or you could always mine your own in low sec (see above).

Ratting - OK, this is clearly better in low-sec than high-sec. But the money you make is minimal compared to the above three.

Low-sec and high-sec are completely different. You cannot encourage your average, run-of-the-mill carebear into low-sec. No matter what pointless buff or nerf you try. Low sec is just too risky and the risk vs reward situation shows that high-sec is much better for these activities than low-sec.

There are profitable carebear things you can do in low-sec. Exploration and PvE can be very profitable. At the end of 2011 some extra DED complexes were added with some nice loot drops. I know several people who make a nice "Eve living" from running these sites. Level 5 missions in a carrier can be profitable IF you are very careful. Those with a jump freighter can make a tidy profit supplying us pirates with ships, modules, ammo and drones. But generally, you will not be able to get carebears into low-sec by minor tweaking of mechanics, manufacturing slot prices and taxes. You need to ask the question, is the risk vs reward worth it?

I've had a think about how the risk vs reward could be fixed. How we could encourage more people into low-sec. Obviously I want this. And there is the overall problem. Why do I want more people to live in low-sec? So I can blow them up!

The risks in low-sec are huge and outweigh the rewards that are available when you compare the risk/reward in hi-sec!.

What are the specific risks in low-sec? Well they are..........

And unfortunately those lot will always put the "risk" in "risk vs. reward" in low-sec!

*Yes, you CAN do carebear things in low-sec if you are really careful and get yourself a nice quiet system, off the travel routes, full of blues. But for the majority of people this doesn't happen and if lots of people moved into low-sec then your system is no longer nice and quiet!

**Yes this blog was rushed. I'm busy! And I hate the bastards on Tweetfleet that introduced me to FTL!

6 comments:

Perhaps it is not reasonable to consider all industrial activities to be carebearing. Certainly, it takes some balls to setup capital shipyards.

Rather, I think we should look at anything that allows one to avoid other players as bearish.

Stations are currently imbalanced according to security status, just as they are too diffident to standing. Even more importantly, stations offer too many advantages vis a vis deployed assets like POS factories. Infinite storage? Instant refineries? Super efficient manufacturing? Come on now, where are the labor strikes at least?

More of the critical linkages of the manufacturing sector need to be relocated to insecure space. Since the real competition occurs on the market, even just a few percentage points of advantage should swing the pendulum.

Personally, I would also prefer to see research jobs based in POS not be extended from the absurd security of a station. POS themselves need selective vulnerabilities to small gangs so as to introduce exposure to very large player empires. It should be possible to disrupt production or harvesting at a structure, even without a swarm of ships. Better still if limited plundering was an option. Papa needs some tech, and smoking clathrates gets you high as a mofo.

You compared null sec to low and said it was less risky (despite all the additional risks in null sec). Why is this? To reduce the risk in low sec, you need more entry points and more space for people to hide in. A component of risk is incidence, and the incidence of coming across someone who wants to blow you up in low sec is higher than anywhere else. More space, more ways to get around, less incidence, less risk.

Definitely, but again, that's an incidence thing. I can wander Delve and not come across anyone, let alone someone who might want to shoot me, for many many jumps. Low sec has a lot of bottlenecks and not a lot of systems, so coming across someone who wants to shoot you is more common. This is balanced compared to other things in null (like bubbles) which severely ramp up the risk if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I personally feel safer wandering around low sec. Sitting in one system and ratting for hours on end... yeah, null sec would be significantly safer than low sec, but again, that's just because you are more likely to have someone wander through your system.

You compared null sec to low and said it was less risky (despite all the additional risks in null sec). Why is this? To reduce the risk in low sec, you need more entry points and more space for people to hide in. A component of risk is incidence, and the incidence of coming across someone who wants to blow you up in low sec is higher than anywhere else. More space, more ways to get around, less incidence, less risk.

The other part of the equation is that there are people, a part of the class I'd refer to as "True Bears", who are enticed by :safety: ALONE, who believe PvP should not exist in hisec (at least outside the market/contract system), and low/null should be the :battlegrounds: for all those ebil PvPers to take their infantile, mommy-abused-me aggression out on each other ... leaving the True Bears to mine, mission, rat, whatever in total peace and :safety: above all else.

Those people, you cannot pry out of hisec with an all-tractor-beam Noctis. If you nerf the :safety: aspect of hisec sufficiently, they won't go to low or null, they will LEAVE the game entirely.

Now, is that really a bad thing? That's hard to judge. Firstly, the ability to hold several alt accounts means that there's really no accurate measure of how many actual :players: live exclusively in hisec, and how many are actually low/null indy/Incursion/trade alts. Without that number, all one can say conclusively is that "60+% of active accounts spend most of their time in hisec", which to CCP, as a business playing things :cautiously: means they're going to tread VERY carefully where hisec is concerned -- because who, from a sheer business standpoint, is going to DARE potentially alienate 60+% of a customer base?

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